Page 64 of The Fallen
She’s safe.
“S’alright, princess,” mutters out of me as she grabs hold of my face. “Don’t cry.” I try lifting a hand to her cheek. Can't though.
No more tears. It’s all over. I’ve done my job.
Just gonna sleep for a while now.
Chapter Twenty Four
NEVE
“Noah? Noah!” I shake his body, but his eyes have closed. The red pool of blood leaking from his side is growing darker. Enough so that his hoodie is saturated with it.
Blake slides round next to me, lifting the soaked material out the way to apply pressure to the wound. “Call an ambulance, Ivy. Right now!”
“Is he going to be okay? He is, right? It’s not …”
I can't finish, and my eyes blur as more tears fall, distorting the vision of him lying on the ground. I sob, crouching over him as Blake does whatever else he can. Sure hands pull at my shoulders, and right now, I’m not strong enough to fight them. Landon pulls me to standing and wraps me in his arms. “You’re going to be okay,” he says.
“Noah? What about Noah?” I ask. He’s got the answer to everything, right? I pull my face from his chest and look directly at him, hands grabbing his shirt. I need him to know that the only way I’ll be alright is if Noah makes it because I won’t be able to cope with that on my conscience as well.
From the corner of my eye, I see Lewis. His head is to the side, eyes staring vacantly out at the scene unfolding behind me.
“Neve, don’t,” Landon warns, but I have to.
I step out of his hold so I can see what happened to the man that caused all this. The vision should shock me – should disgust me – but it doesn’t.
Blood flecks his face, his mouth agape, and his eyes – once warm and trusting – are now flat and lifeless. His flesh has ripped from his bones, and blood oozes from his body. I find it difficult to tear my eyes from his corpse as if I need to process it all to fully understand what I’m seeing. It’s hard to make out anything specific about his wound. It’s just a mess where the shotgun did its job.
Nothing like Daddy’s body.
His white shirt turned bright with blood, and no matter how much pressure I put on his chest, it wouldn’t stop. It kept on leaking. He looked … peaceful, like he was taking a nap, but the blood wouldn’t stop. The bullet did its job.
And Landon shot Lewis.
This could have been Noah.
It could have been Landon, or Blake, or Ivy or Seffi …
I turn away from his body and look out at my family. They’re all here. Safe from Lewis and any further threat.
Except for Noah.
I look up at Landon again. “Ambulance is on the way,” he confirms.
“He can’t …” The sentence hangs in the air, and it kicks at my heart as a rush of fear poisons my blood. I drop to my knees again, crawling to get to him, and push his hair from his brow. “Don’t you give up, Noah Locke. You can’t do this. You can't, and I won't let you.”
My eyes flash to the wad of material Blake’s secured around his wound. “It’s all I can do for him until the ambulance gets here,” he says quietly. The reassurance doesn’t settle the worry in the pit of my stomach.
I nod and rub at my eyes, determined to push past the tears. There will be time for tears later. When I know he’ll be okay. He has to be. He doesn’t have a choice because if this has taught me anything, it’s that life is too precious to second guess or wait for something to happen. You have to go out and seize what you want. And despite our previous argument about now or never, I’m not ready for me and Noah to be over, despite what he’s said. What I feel for him isn’t gratitude or lust or regret.It’s compassion, happiness, terror … could there be love?
“We’re not through, Noah. You hear me. I don’t care what you said; if you want to have that argument again, you better get your arse better and fight me on this,” I whisper in his ear, hoping he’ll understand what I’m saying. “Where’s the damn ambulance,” I blurt, looking around for someone to offer some sort of help.
“Scott and Seffi went to make sure they know where to come,” Ivy says. Her words are flat and unemotional, and her eyes don’t quite meet mine. I wonder if it’s because she’s still mad at me, but, again, I don't have time for that now, or the mind space with Noah lying here on the ground.
I sigh and look at him, my stare focused on his eyes in the hope they'll flutter open or blink or do anything to show me he's still fighting for his life.
A sudden, loud explosion makes me reel on top of him, shock and fear throwing me across his body. I turn the moment I can, eyes searching the area to see what happened. Landon’s on the floor, his body covering Willow, and then he's slowly getting up to run. I look over the rest of the carnage, gaping as I watch flames lick up the side of Tallington’s east wing. The windows are blown out, half the stonework is crumbling out onto the terrace, and smokes already billowing up into the sky.
